The Challenges and Constructive Role of Journalism During COVID-19 in Communication Ecology of Pandemic Reporting in the Global South

Introduction

This is subject especially vital amid a public health crisis such as the COVID-19 epidemic, when journalists are expected to communicate information of significance to the public (Adams, 2021; Cox, 2020). The journalists’ responsibility is to educate the public about critical issues that affect them. Normal communication ecosystems include news organisation, and therefore it is reasonable to assume that journalists and news organisation are operating inside a COVID-19 communication ecology during the COVID-19 pandemic (Yousaf et al., 2022). Journalists act as a resource for those working in the environmental field, while also juggling their struggles with the situation (O’Keeffe et al., 2021). According to a leading newspaper-based journalist interviewed for this research in May 2021, to be a journalist during COVID-19 was to “stump for the truth and to stump for critical thinking and to attempt to explain the value of those things,” among other things. An Associated Press journalist described having a personal responsibility to connect people with the resources they needed to stay healthy, particularly given that people “didn't feel COVID-19 was a real threat—they felt that the media, the government, and the healthcare system were all conspiring to make this a bigger deal than it should have been” at the start of the pandemic (Adams, 2021).

It is necessary to have a thorough grasp of the communication process and the context in which it takes place before it can be examined (Trifonova Price & Antonova, 2022). When it comes to spreading information about crises and disasters, journalists operate as a part of a larger ecosystem in which journalism impacts and is impacted by the natural world. In order to get a better understanding of communication ecologies, researchers often isolate certain activities and investigate how they are connected to other processes and data (Libert, Cam & Domingo, 2022). The instability of social media, the fluctuation of information, and the urge to verify information regarding hazards, health, and crises all serve as focal point for a conversation about communication and its implications (Lough & McIntyre, 2021). In this sense, communication ecologies offer a forum for discussing more general topics. It may be difficult for conventional resource-constrained journalists to navigate the limits of modern journalistic methods (such as data journalism, social media analysis, predictive journalism, and relocated data) when faced with these conditions (Jin et al., 2022; Raza et al., 2021).

Journalists' discussions about covering COVID-19 are influenced by the broader public debate outside the media realm (Perreault & Perreault, 2021; Raza et al., 2021). When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, this study examined how journalists formed their ecological links using discursive means (concerning sources and their communities, information, and personal networks). The way journalists understood their roles regarding crisis information within the ecosystem was also examined. In a discursive posture of vulnerability inside the communication ecology, journalists working during COVID-19 positioned themselves in a vulnerable position within the communication ecology. We argue that this was done despite their responsibility to foster connections. Thus, journalists found it difficult to cover activities during the pandemic since it accentuated flaws within the ecosystem for some time before the outbreak.